


The Girls I've Loved

by SloanGreyMercyDeath



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: F/F, I've been into character studies recently lmao, a little.... coming of age story, i guess, this is emily
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 10:21:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28508868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SloanGreyMercyDeath/pseuds/SloanGreyMercyDeath
Summary: Emily Prentiss has always known she loves girls. She knows it when she's 7 and falls in love with Gina Marchant in France and when she's 37 and falls in love with Jennifer Jareau. But does love really overcome anything?
Relationships: Jennifer "JJ" Jareau/Emily Prentiss
Comments: 7
Kudos: 101





	The Girls I've Loved

Emily Prentiss has known she liked girls since she was born. From the first moment she blinked up into the pretty green eyes of a lady nurse, she was gone. It’s been girls, girls, girls ever since.

She falls in love with Gina Marchant in France when she is 7 and Bella Siciliano in Italy when she is 9 and Darya Ivanova in Russia when she is 12. It is Sarah and then Anya and then Tuva and then Lila and then Alison. She loves Mary, Maria, Madeline, Mackenzie, and Mildred, all before college. Then, it’s Sam, Bobby, Hank, and Fran. Yale introduces her to Laura, Addison, Madison, and Caroline. For a while, it’s Tsia and then, for a while, it’s nobody.

Of course, it isn’t as easy as a long list of names may suggest. Emily is made very aware as soon as she can understand words that she is a  _ Prentiss  _ and  _ every Prentiss has a responsibility to the United States of America and to their family. _ So, she may know she likes women, but when she falls in love with Gina in France at age 7, she knows their  _ tawdry love  _ can only exist in the shadows. 

That’s what the books in her housekeeper’s closet say anyway. When girls love each other, it stays secret. Also, they still have to have husbands. Her housekeeper stays behind in France when they move because she gets engaged.

The fact that she likes girls doesn’t really matter anyway. At the same time she learns about Familial Responsibility, she’s fitted for the family mask. It isn’t a literal mask (except for the years they attend masquerades), but it may as well be. Five-year-old Emily, with her hair as black as night and her shimmering pink dress made from Parisian Silk, knows exactly how to greet guests when they enter the Ambassador’s mansion. She knows that her mother should only be called “The Ambassador,” and she knows that Adults are always impressed by the chandelier above the foyer, the original carpeting in the sitting room, and the way she speaks crystal clear French, German, and Spanish. Emily doesn’t learn English until she is six.

There are things Emily  _ knows,  _ but doesn’t remember. For example, she was born in Washington DC (which was the capital of America, but not a state), her father was there when she was born and left soon after, and her mother loves her. All the cards and notes given to her by her nannies say so.

At age seven, Emily is allowed to attend a private school. She is taught by governesses until then and she is incredibly excited to be allowed out of the house to go somewhere other than a ball or a gala. She asks her mother once what the difference is between a ball and a gala and her mother says, “Hush now, dear. I’m busy.” Years later, when Emily is buried between Bobby’s legs, she’ll say that phrase playfully, freeze, leave, and never speak to Bobby again.

When she’s seven, the answer just annoys her. Emily doesn’t let it dampen her excitement, though. She shows up at private school in France, dressed in her best day dress (it’s yellow with white flowers, but she wears a black sweater and black socks, so it isn’t so bright), and walks straight up to the teacher to introduce herself. The teacher looks startled at the bold introduction in textbook perfect French, but she shakes little Emily’s hand and sits her next to Gina.

It’s love at first sight. Gina has honey-colored hair that’s tinged just a little bit orange. She only speaks French, but she’s so pretty that Emily doesn’t even judge her. Instead, she asks to hold Gina’s hand during gym class and they always play together during recess. Emily tries to teach her words in English, but Gina’s accent is so thick that they just end up laughing.

The Ambassador gets reassigned at the end of the year and Emily only gets a month and a half with Gina. For the rest of her life, she thinks of their separation as one of her life’s greatest tragedies. It’s silly and by the time she hits 30, it’s more a joke than anything, but at seven, she cries for the entire flight to Rome.

She gets her period when she’s nine, at her second private school, and it’s Bella who saves her. Emily thinks she’s dying, that something broke inside her and she’s going to drain out into nothing. Bella is surprised that her mother never had The Talk with her, but Emily just adds the offense to an ever-growing list. She isn’t sure when she started keeping track of disappointments, but she has one by the time Bella wipes away her tears and tells her she’s a woman now.

Emily falls in love with the beauty mark behind Bella’s ear. It’s shaped like a bird and, at nine-years-old, it feels like a sign. They’re inseparable for two years. Then, The Ambassador moves them to Russia and Emily considers it two strikes against her. When they land in Russia, Emily decides that she’s done with playing the good daughter and cuts holes in all of her dresses.

Darya Ivanova is The Ambassador’s personal shopper in Russia. Emily is 12 and, by now, she knows what ‘gay’ is, but it still doesn’t seem to fit her. She isn’t interested in marrying anyone and she thinks kissing is gross and she likes wearing dresses and make-up and all the gay women she knows wear suits. Darya is wearing a suit. Emily thinks she may like suits after all.

After a day of shopping and tailoring and loud complaining, Emily has new dresses. They’re all either black, navy, or a deep, chocolate brown, and she feels very adult. Darya smiles when Emily twirls and suddenly, the twelve-year-old has a new favorite item of clothing. When Emily gets home, The Ambassador says she’s too young to be wearing such dark colors, but at least they’re professional and Emily probably won’t get much taller. The comment makes her like the new dresses even more.

When she turns 13, The Ambassador decides that Emily is an adult and she no longer has to parent her. Not that she’d been a good parent before. Emily just salutes her and walks away, wandering through their maze-like villa until she’s in her room. It’s bare, with only a few items on top of the dresser and one large bookshelf. She goes straight to it, pulling down her favorite Beebo Brinker novel. It’s inappropriate for a kid, but she hasn’t really been a kid in a long time and she’d rather read a lesbian noir than some fairy tale she can’t relate to at all.

She lets herself disappear for a while, falling in love with every pretty girl she looks at. It’s easy, it’s harmless, and it’s something positive to put in her journal. She refuses to let the record of her life be depressing. Instead, she draws hearts and writes “Emily + Tuva Forever.” It keeps her alive until she’s 15.

Before she is banned from a church in Galicia, Spain, Emily doesn’t even know she’s religious. Going to church with The Ambassador was about seeing and being seen, not God, and when The Ambassador finds out what’s happened, Emily almost wishes she had someone to pray to. It’s the first, and only, time the Ambassador screams at her, and Emily, with her teased black hair and fishnet shirts, remembers that she’s still a child after all.

Emily knows since she’s born that she comes third to her mother. The Prentiss name comes first, then the United States, and then Emily. She’s accepted that, and she’s fine with that, but she’s been having a really hard time and she wishes her mother could just acknowledge that. Can’t she be nice for one day?

Apparently, she can’t. So, Emily, slumped in a chair that was more form than function, listens to her mother rant and rave. Less than an hour after being kicked out of church, less than a day after having an abortion, less than two months after lossing her virginity to a boy she doesn’t give two shits about, Emily lets her mother tell her she is a smear on the Prentiss name. She feels each reprimand, each reminder of  _ Familial Responsibility _ , each time The Ambassador says, ‘You’re better than this,” like a stake through the chest.

Is she better than this, though? Emily doesn’t know that she’s any better than an angry teenager who smokes Parliaments and then uses the filters to snort coke. Is she better than someone who has sex with a boy she barely knows because she thinks it’ll make him like her? Is she better than a kid who is rebelling just to rebel? Who knows that in a year or so, she’ll fix her hair, replace her clothing again, go to college because she has to, and then marry a man who always travels? Is she any better than her mother?

The questions just make her sad. When her mother runs out of steam, Emily wanders away, knowing that she’ll face no consequences except the lingering malaise she’s felt her entire life anyway. Despite the trauma she’s gained from the experience, Emily is a little bit thankful for her poor decision. She knows with a bone-deep certainty now that she is a lesbian. At 15, she knows what that means and she knows who she is enough to keep from making the same mistake.

They leave Spain and Emily learns that a bold smile (and bold cleavage) will open any door for her. She embraces her queerness, finding every underground night club in the city, and then the country, and eventually, she travels to find more. The end of her childhood is given away, tucked into other women’s underwear, moaned against butch chests, and spent on lace she is too young to be wearing.

College is spent similarly, but DC has fewer queer places than she expected and she has to make her own. Her apartment becomes a hub for women, both beautiful and handsome, and she makes herself available at any time of day or night. Somehow, she gets straight As, works as a waitress, and never sleeps through the night. It’s exhausting, but Emily feels numb and empty and full of life and she never has to speak with The Ambassador or worry about money or be herself.

At Yale, she starts to slow down. She knows that her wild lifestyle will burn her out eventually, setting her right back on The Ambassador’s doorstep, back to tense silences, but this time she’d also be in the market for a husband. So, in honor of a French housekeeper who’s name she doesn’t remember, and beautiful honey-haired Gina, Emily gets her life together. Ironically, she has to return to normalcy to escape it.

She joins the FBI almost on a whim. It feels like an option that suits both the  _ Prentiss name  _ and the duty that  _ every Prentiss has to the United States of America.  _ If she’s honest, she joins because of Caroline, who is also joining. She brought her application form to Emily’s apartment in Boston and, after they’ve eaten and  _ eaten,  _ fills it out. Emily thinks it’ll be romantic to go through the Academy together. Caroline drops out after a week.

Like she will later tell the BAU, she begins her service in the Midwest. It’s St. Louis and then Chicago and then it’s the JTF-12. She meets Tsia there and it’s the first time she really realizes that she’s measured her life in love interests. From holding hands with Gina in gym class to making Tsia gasp her name in a supply closet in the London office, Emily can draw a map of her travels strung together with Hellos and Goodbyes.

That map is torn to shreds by Ian Doyle. Emily slept with a boy when she was 15 because she was lost and confused and lonely, but she sleeps with Ian Doyle when she’s 33 because it’s her job. She’s given the task of seducing him to find out who Valhalla is and somewhere along the way Ian Doyle falls in love with her. She doesn’t know if she falls in love with him, too.

He takes care of her, lets her meet his son, gives her flowers to grow, buys a bed to sleep and fuck in, and, eventually, trusts her with his secret. The entire time, her world is crumbling around her as she laughs and smiles and plays at wife. An entire life’s worth of pretending is put into practice. It works, he’s arrested, and she’s tossed back out into the world with two names and no idea who she is.

She willingly sleeps with Doyle. She willingly makes him fall for her. She willingly agrees to marry him and raise his son and be his. Truthfully, it is Lauren, but Lauren is just Emily in different clothing, right? What is Emily supposed to do with another boy on her list of disappointments? What color pin does she put at the intersection of Reality and Disguise?

What makes it worse is the fact that she comes back to a Tsia who is engaged. She reappears as Emily in Washington DC, her supposed hometown, and has nothing waiting for her. Suddenly, she’s wearing dark dresses again and attending balls and galas without an idea of what makes them different and she’s tempted to open her apartment again to her old friends, to lose herself, to find herself.

Instead, she’s assigned to the BAU. She convinces Hotch, who knew her during her lost years, that she deserves this spot. She meets Penelope and Derek and Spencer and Gideon. She meets Jennifer Jareau.

The blonde woman instantly becomes the latest name on her list of loves and Emily lets the familiar feeling of an unrequited crush carry her through the next year. She flirts, and JJ flirts back, and neither of them takes it seriously. It’s fun and it’s easy and, as long as Emily keeps her distance, it doesn’t mean anything. There’s no kissing, no sex, and no feelings. It’s just friendship, which feels important in its own way.

Then, there’s New Orleans. JJ meets a detective and Emily gets ready to put a pin in their goodbye. She can tell because the way he looks at her is the same way Emily does. He has an easy accent and sleepy eyes and can promise stability and love. Emily has nothing to give. JJ has the choice to keep flirting and go nowhere or follow in the long history of girls who like girls who get husbands.

For some reason, JJ chooses Emily. She chooses casual flirting and Emily’s inability to open up and no husband. That night, in their too hot hotel room, Emily gives in and crawls into JJ’s bed. JJ is sweaty and tired and clumsy, but she is not surprised. She’s been waiting for Emily all along and Emily thinks JJ would have made a move earlier if Emily wasn’t so fucking hard to read.

The first time they have sex is messy. It’s new to JJ and old to Emily, but the way JJ looks is eye-opening. Emily thinks this might be love after all. Emily wants to press her lips to every inch of JJ’s perfect body, memorize her curves and edges, taste her sweat and other things. She laps at the dip in JJ’s throat and bites the inside of her thigh and makes her fall apart with a grateful sigh.

She still isn’t sure where JJ stands, and she prepares herself to be kicked out of bed, but JJ just flips them over. Her strong and caring arms pull Emily close. Her fingers sink into Emily, her tongue licks fevered skin, and she whispers words of love into Emily’s ear. Suddenly, Emily is somebody’s first priority.

It goes well. For the first time in Emily’s life, something goes well. She has a job and a girlfriend and then a wife and no one is yelling at her or disappointed in her or waiting for her to mess up. It is wonderful. Her job is wonderful, her home is wonderful, her life and love are wonderful.

It takes her five whole years to ruin it. From their first kiss to the moment Emily decides she can’t do it, five years pass. They are filled with love and danger and happiness. Small moments that knock Emily off her feet and big moments that feel manageable because JJ is by her side. Big moments like the birth of their daughter.

Emily is out of town when the baby comes. She’s only just healed from Doyle’s return, death only avoided because of her wife’s insistence that they involve the team. The incident left her with a scar on her stomach and a reminder of the scar on her heart. Doyle loved her until the moment he died, but she still doesn’t know if she ever loved him at all. When Derek finds her with a stake in her stomach, Doyle beside her where she strangled him to death, all she knows is that she has a second chance, a pregnant wife, and a choice to make.

She gets a call from Penelope that JJ is in labor and Emily realizes she still hasn’t made that choice. Hotch gives her the jet to fly home, Garcia sends her a car, and Emily makes her way to the hospital. The entire time, she’s thinking about Gina and Bella and Darya and Tuva and Bobby and Tsia. She’s thinking about all the girls she’s loved and all the women she’s left behind and wonders what makes JJ different? What has changed about Emily that makes her deserve a wife and a daughter and a future?

There isn’t a clear answer and Emily walks into the hospital with doubt in her mind and that familiar lasting malaise in her heart. She makes it all the way to the room where JJ is giving birth and lets a nurse give her gloves and a gown and a stupid hairnet. She’s sanitary and clean and feels sick to her stomach.

Standing outside the door, she hesitates. Her wife is inside and so is Penelope and so is her unborn daughter. She can do this. She can go inside and kiss her wife and raise a child and be a good mother. She doesn’t have to continue the  _ Prentiss  _ tradition of being nothing more than a family name.

With a deep breath, she opens the door and steps into the room. JJ’s eyes are closed. She’s sweating and crying and screaming and she looks terrible and perfect. Emily takes one step toward her before a cry splits the air and stops her in her tracks. It’s the first cry of her daughter, a little girl named Roslyn Jareau, or RJ for short. JJ’s eyes flicker open and they immediately land on Emily’s. She begins to smile, but hesitates as something in Emily’s black eyes gives her away. Turning on her heel, Emily leaves.

She races through the hospital, all her mistakes chasing after her and she rips them off like she rips off the gown and the gloves and the stupid hairnet. It’s too much to handle and her mind shuts down, retreating to a place where nothing matters and everything is fine. The icy chill of a DC January hits her as she continues her frantic pace down the street, away from the people she loves, toward nowhere in particular. It’s only when she slips on black ice and hits the ground that she stops to think.

Even though she’s only wearing a flimsy sweatshirt and sweatpants (her usual planewear), she stays on the icy sidewalk. One sob breaks from her, and then another, and then another. Then, she’s crying into her hands on a frozen sidewalk in her hometown. Alone.

It feels right somehow, even though she isn’t used to it. The chill that’s slowly creeping into her bones is familiar, like the distant chill of her mother or the sharp chill of panic. It fits the sadness that has colored her edges since she was born. It matches the sadness she knows that she’s set into JJ’s heart. It reminds her of her brief death in the ambulance before JJ’s warmth met her in a hospital room.

That’s what Emily should be doing now. She should be by her wife’s side, comforting her, saying hello to their daughter. Emily doesn’t even know if their daughter has sky blue eyes, too. Emily’s heart clenches at the thought.

How did she manage to fuck up the one good thing she’s ever had? The answer comes easily. It’s because she’s a fuck up. She always was and she always will be. From the moment she let her mother take her away from the first girl she loved, all the way down a long list of loves to the baby Emily still hasn’t seen, she’s been a fuck up. 

Her phone rings, startling her. Reaching into her pocket, she pulls it out and cries harder at the image of her wife, grinning into the camera as she showed off her biceps and her abs. They took the photo on the day they moved into their house together. Emily gave up moving boxes and JJ took over, bragging about her muscles until Emily made her take her shirt off and prove it. The picture of happiness mocks her now.

The call ends and Emily just stares at the phone. Another mistake. She wonders if JJ will start her own list of disappointments, like the one Emily still has for her mother. Maybe she already has one and this is just the newest entry. The phone flashes as a voicemail appears and, despite herself, Emily listens to it.

_ Emily. I know this is hard. Maybe it’s too hard. I want you here… If that’s something you can do. But I also want you to know that… RJ and I will be ok. I’ll miss you, but I’ll be fine. I’ve got Pen and the team and my mom. You don’t have to come back. We’ve had a great run and- Well, I don’t understand, but I know you and I know that things like this are hard. Anyway, it’s up to you. I love you.  _

Emily is on her feet before she can blink. She doesn’t want JJ to be  _ fine _ . She doesn’t want RJ to be  _ fine. _ She wants them to be happy. She wants them to have good, full lives. She wants to be a part of that. This doesn’t have to be how her story ends, and it would be. Emily won’t take care of herself if she doesn’t have a reason to and she’ll fade away to nothing without someone to care for her and to care for.

She heads back toward the hospital, startled when she sees how far she ran. The cold feels thrilling now. It spurs her toward the warmth of her love and her life. Her list of disappointments is going to end. It’s going to be a new list of happy memories. She isn’t going to lie to her journal anymore. It’s going to be the truth from now on. A good truth.

The hospital feels like a maze. It has too many floors and hallways keeping her from her wife and newborn daughter. Still, she finds her way. The newfound clarity in her mind guides her forward and she is suddenly in the doorway, staring at her wife, and her daughter. Penelope is there, too, but she leaves as soon as she sees Emily, patting her arm as she slides past her.

“You came back,” JJ says, sounding relieved. Their daughter is in her arms, wrinkled and red. “I was so worried that you wouldn’t.”

“You said you’d be fine,” Emily muttered. She couldn’t make herself move. “You said it’d be ok.”

JJ laughs wetly, tears streaming down her face as she rolls her eyes. “I was lying. Obviously. What am I supposed to do without you, Emily? You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Other than RJ, I guess.”

“God, JJ, I’m so sorry.”

Emily finally moves. She goes to JJ’s side, lowers the railing on the bed, and climbs in. Their daughter hiccups and reaches a hand out and Emily takes it. It’s so small and fragile and RJ looks like the picture of health and hope and happiness. Emily looks up into JJ’s exhausted, crying eyes with crying eyes of her own.

“I’ll never leave again,” she promises. “I’m done running. I’m done leaving people behind.”

JJ smiles, but she raises an eyebrow. “We both know that’s not true, but I appreciate the thought. As long as you keep coming back, I guess you can keep running away.”

A thought hits Emily and it’s one she’s never had before. There is always the option to come home. Every time she left, she could have gone back. At least once she was old enough. Her life has been a series of Hellos and Goodbyes, an arrow drawn from one to the other. Maybe there isn’t anything wrong with Goodbye, as long as it isn’t forever.

Looking at the family she has in her arms, Emily adds another name to the list of girls she’s loved. Then, she starts a new one. This is a list of people to come back to, people who are her home. This list is her “It’s Ok To Leave As Long As You Come Back" list. It’s a port in the storm of her life. It's a safe harbor in the hurricane of her heart. It’s JJ and RJ and the rest of the team, and maybe… Maybe it’s Emily, too.


End file.
